Kitchen Queries

Welcome to Kitchen Queries, where the nigella.com team will answer your cooking or food related questions. We’d love you to submit some of your recipe problems, dilemmas or queries for us to get our teeth into!

Please note, we are only able to answer questions selected for publication and aren't able to enter into personal correspondence.

Latest Queries

Covering Flourless Cakes With Fondant Icing

Would the Chocolate Olive Oil cake be heavy enough to support fondant icing? I'm hoping to make a football-shaped cake for my husband's birthday and decorate it with a 1/4" layer (or thinner) of fondant icing. Thanks.

Hi, I am planning a wedding cake for a friend and wonder if the Flourless Chocolate Lime Cake can be covered with fondant? If yes can it be baked few days before? Thanks, Nous.

Posted by sinead.oneill. Answered on 7th Jul 2014 at 12.00

From the nigella team:

Nigella's Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (from Nigellissima and on the Nigella website) and Flourless Chocolate Lime Cake are flourless, gluten free cakes made with ground almonds (almond meal). As the cakes are gluten free they tend to be more fragile than a regular cake and we suspect that unfortunately you may find it very difficult to cover either of them with fondant icing. The cakes are also very moist and may "sweat" slightly under a fondant layer.

The cakes are also only a single layer and because of the fragile nature of the cake it would be difficult to stack layers of the cake or cut it into novelty shapes. In addition, both cakes tend to have slightly raised edges, which will be tricky to shave down for a flat surface (turning the cakes over and icing the base would also be tricky), so it would be very difficult to achieve a smooth finish. Instead you may like to try Nigella's Chocolate Fudge Cake (from Nigella Bites and on the Nigella website), which is made with corn oil, or her Devil's Food Cake (from Kitchen and on the Nigella website). These cakes are a little more robust, but both contain gluten.